Readers' pictures: Dark storm clouds gather over Hong Kong

It could be a scene from a Hollywood movie: thick black clouds roll across Hong Kong's historic Victoria Harbour ahead of a superstorm.

But this was the real thing on Tuesday afternoon as the city prepared for an amber rainstorm.

The image below, tweeted by Reuters financial news reporter and presenter Cathy Yang, was taken at 3pm from the 42nd floor of Gloucester Tower in Hong Kong, and shows dark clouds rolling into the harbour.

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Above: view from Sai Ying Pun. Photo: Brett Ford of 4D images

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Hong Kong's Observatory issued the amber rain and thunderstorm warning as gusts of 90km per hour were recorded at Tai Mei Tuk. It predicted winds would reach 100km per hour across the city.

“Locally, rain and thunderstorms [on Tuesday afternoon] brought more than 10 to 20 millimetres of rainfall to most part of the territory, and rainfall even exceeded 30 millimetres over Sai Kung,” a spokesman said.

It brought strong winds across Hong Kong, blowing off stacked containers and a scaffold and halting services at a tourist cable car system.

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In the Kwai Tsing container ports, several stacked containers fell and hit a truck, injuring its driver. A six-storey-high scaffold collapsed in a Kowloon City site. It hit a private car but no one was injured.

Services of cable car at the Ngong Ping 360 on Lantau were suspended in the afternoon due to the bad weather.

The Mobile M+: Inflation! exhbition at West Kowloon Cultural District announced on Tuesday afternoon that it was closing due to the weather. An announcement on its Facebook page read: "Special announcement: Amber Rainstorm warning signal and thunderstorm warning are now in force, ‘Mobile M+: Inflation!’ is closed until further notice. Sorry for the inconvenience caused and we will keep you posted with the latest news.”